


The Mayor's Chair

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Monthly Rumbelling, F/M, Family Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 12:59:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15774594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: Gideon gets into some trouble whilst Belle and Rumpel are supervising a school field trip to the town hall.Written for the @a-monthly-rumbelling prompt: “Mayor for a day”





	The Mayor's Chair

When Mary Margaret had asked for volunteers to help chaperone the elementary school field trip to the town hall, Belle had been quick to sign up. She loved spending time with the kids when they came to the library for story times, and she was always more than happy to help out whenever Gideon’s class needed extra adult assistance.

She had not been expecting Rumpel to join her in chaperoning, but since he was here, she wasn’t going to complain.

“You always keep telling me to take more of an interest in local affairs,” he said as they herded the children down the street and into the town hall where Regina was waiting to give them the grand tour. The kids were a bit young to be getting into the complexities of local government yet, but any excuse not to be in a classroom was a good excuse in their eyes, so they were happy to go with the flow.

Gideon was near the front of the gaggle of children, assiduously avoiding making eye contact with his parents. He was getting to the age now where Parents Were Embarrassing, and he’d been mortified to find out that both of his were coming on the field trip as chaperones, so naturally, he was pretending that he didn’t know them.

Regina was explaining the relevance of one of the large paintings on the walls when Belle noticed Gideon and Robyn conspiring in a corner. Although not exactly an intentional troublemaker, Gideon had always had an affinity for the dramatic inherited from his father, and when he got excited, his magic had the tendency to go somewhat haywire. The last thing that Belle wanted was for all the furniture in the mayor’s office to start dancing a conga line as the result of some mischief that had got out of hand. She was glad that Rumpel was there and could nip any of that in the bud if necessary.

She touched Rumpel’s arm and indicated the two whisperers in the corner.

“What do you think they’re planning?” she muttered.

“An escape from the tedium of this tour, perhaps?” Rumpel replied. “I like Regina but she’s really not a tour guide.”

Belle batted his arm. “I think it’s all fascinating.”

“You’re not eight years old.”

“Neither are you, although I’m not quite sure that the same applies to your mental age sometimes.”

The group moved on and Gideon and Robyn saw their opportunity, sneaking through a door whilst they thought that no-one was looking. Belle and Rumpel exchanged a look. On the one hand, they probably shouldn’t abandon the group without warning. On the other hand, they wouldn’t be very good chaperones if they knowingly lost two of the children on their watch. On yet another hand, it would be even more embarrassing if one of the unsupervised miscreants was revealed as their own child.

The decision was mutual, silent and immediate, and they slipped through the door after Gideon and Robyn.

The two children were nowhere to be seen, but it was easy enough to follow the sound of giggling along the corridor, and Belle couldn’t help but smile. Rumpel just sighed.

“How did we manage to raise a child that has such a propensity for causing chaos?” he muttered.

Belle raised an eyebrow. “You’re one to talk. I firmly believe that the genes for causing chaos came from you.”

“You’re perfectly able to cause chaos yourself when you want to, my love. You completely turned my life upside down the moment you came into it.”

“Ah yes, but I turned your life upside down in a good way.” Belle slipped her arm through Rumpel’s as they followed the sound of their son’s laughter. “I’ve never heard you complain about me causing chaos in your previously not-at-all neatly ordered life before now. If anything, I removed the chaos, rather than causing it.”

“I suppose that’s true in a way.”

Belle batted his arm. “What do you mean, ‘in a way’? It  _is_  true!”

“I know that now, but I didn’t appreciate it at all at the time. Suddenly I couldn’t find anything anywhere.”

“I was amazed that you could find anything before I tidied up. The castle was in a terrible state.”

“I had a very complex sorting system, I’ll have you know.” Rumpel looked at her in mock offence. “You ruined it when you started dusting everything.”

“Rumpel, you couldn’t see half of the bottle labels in your laboratory because they were that encrusted with cobwebs. I’m amazed that you didn’t poison yourself or anyone else with the concoctions that you were brewing blind in there.”

Rumpel sniffed emphatically. “Your lack of faith wounds me.”

Belle just rolled her eyes, going up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek. She knew that Rumpel didn’t mind, and she did enjoy this easy banter with him. It was always nice to reminisce about the first stages of their relationship, before they had really realised the full extent of their feelings towards each other. In a way, she felt like they had come full circle. 

It was in those first few months together at the Dark Castle that they had really learned to be comfortable with each other, and despite the moments of awkwardness that had arisen when she had first realised that she was falling in love with Rumpel, those early days had been some of the best that they had spent together, before things had started to go wrong and only truly fixed themselves with the arrival of Gideon and their happy beginning.

They came to a stop outside Regina’s office, where Gideon and Robyn’s laughter seemed to be coming from. The sound was so gleeful and, whilst not innocent, not at all malicious. Belle was loath to interrupt it; she wanted to stay here outside the door and listen to her son at play for the rest of the day, but she knew that there would be hell to pay if anything got broken inside the office as a result of Gideon’s fun. When Gideon and Robyn got together, both of them with untapped and occasionally uncontrollable magical potential, the risk of accidents became increased tenfold.

The door was ajar, and Belle pushed it open a little further to see Gideon sitting in Regina’s chair; he would have looked every inch as if he were supposed to be there if it hadn’t been for the fact that his feet didn’t touch the floor.

“Gideon,” she said, “what are you doing? You know that you really shouldn’t sneak off like that. Especially when your papa and I are standing right behind you.”

Gideon pouted. “Robyn and I just wanted to play at being the mayor.”

It was a very subtle little shift, but Belle had become attuned to Rumpel and Gideon’s magic and she could always tell when Gideon had cast a spell without meaning to. Naturally, Rumpel was even more sensitive to it than she was, being a magician himself, and he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“What have you done, Gid?” Belle asked levelly.

“I didn’t mean to! It was an accident! And I don’t know what I did! I just did it!”

“He’s made himself into the mayor,” Rumpel said.

“Can he do that?”

“Apparently so. All of the legal powers that were invested in Regina when she was sworn in to the office have now magically been transferred to Gideon. He’s mayor now.”

Gideon’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure you’d enjoy being mayor. It involves a lot of sitting around in meetings and you can’t start playing when you get bored.”

“Oh.” Gideon didn’t look at all enamoured by the idea of being mayor anymore.

“What’s happening? I felt a magic shift and I thought it had come from here…” Regina tailed off as she came into the room and saw Gideon sitting in her chair looking rather guilty, and Robyn beside him looking equally contrite. She sighed, shaking her head. “How did I know it was going to be you two?”

“I take full responsibility, Madam Mayor,” Rumpelstiltskin said.

Regina shook her head again. “I’m not Madam Mayor anymore,” she said. “Thanks to whatever it is that’s happened, I think that position now falls to the one in the chair.”

“I can assure you that the effects are only temporary. Everything will be back to normal tomorrow morning; Gideon’s magic isn’t strong enough yet to sustain any of his accidental spells for any length of time. In the meantime, I’d suggest postponing anything crucial.”

Regina nodded. “Yes, I believe I’m going to have to.” She looked over at Robyn. “I will be having words with your mother, young lady.”

“Yes, Aunt Regina.”

“Go on, both of you, Mrs Nolan will be having kittens. Just make sure that you use your new mayoral powers wisely, Gideon.”

“I will. I promise.”

“No decreeing that ice-cream should be free or anything like that.”

Gideon’s eyes lit up at the prospect of ice-cream, but a stern look from his father had him downcast again.

“I’ll be good.”

Belle and Rumpel shepherded the two children out of the office and took them back towards the entrance of the town hall to meet up with the rest of the party. Seeing the two missing children reappear with Belle and Rumpel, Mary Margaret let out a visible sigh of relief, and they began to escort the troop back to the school for the rest of afternoon class.

Walking at the back of the group with Rumpel, Belle laughed out loud.

Rumpel raised an eyebrow. “What’s tickled you?”

“I think Gideon sometimes manages to cause more chaos than the two of us combined,” Belle replied. “Still, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Rumpel took her hand, squeezing tightly. “Neither would I.”


End file.
